Easter – Ripple Effects

Easter: the Joy of Eternal Hope

A time to be silent, and a time to speak.

What better days than Easter to speak of death, and life eternal.

“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” (John 11: 25-26)

The past few months I’ve been silent on Ripple Effects. Actually, for the past year, I’d been posting just occasionally. Fact is, for fifteen months, I’ve been caring for my husband afflicted with cancer. It had been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. On some days, he was well enough that we could go out to have a meal in a restaurant; on other days, it would be just a tiny morsel or nothing at all. All these months, I’d learned to find joy in afflictions, and be grateful for just being able to sit down at the breakfast table together, the warm, morning rays seeping in, and immersed in the moment.

This year started with an ominous diagnosis. The metastasized cancer cells had not only mutated but the new growth was extremely aggressive. Battling terminal illness had made everything superfluous, books, movies, or music. What was left was the very essence of my being, faith in the risen Christ. Both of us were often revived by the promises of the living God, inspired by His Word, and sustained by the encouragement and prayers of countless supporters the world over via online prayer groups. It had been a journey of faith. Ultimately, it’s all grace.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed… (2 Corinthians 4:7-9)

On March 21, my husband departed to a better country. We were not unfamiliar with the immigrant experience. Now, a final move to that eternal kingdom, a homeland much more beautiful than anywhere in this world. He had arrived there first, I’ll join him one day. He was accepting, which was grace in itself. We were prepared, even planned his celebration of life service together. The event turned out to be a memorable occasion for hundreds to gather for a collective remembrance in peace and even joy.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

All because He is risen. He is risen indeed!

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Happy Easter!

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Easter Thoughts from Madeleine L’Engle

“Easter, which turns a terrible Friday into Good Friday. It is almost too brilliant for me to contemplate; it is like looking directly into the sun; I am burned and blinded by life.

There are times when I feel that He has withdrawn from me… but Easter is always the answer to My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me!

Easter is the most brilliant of all blessings.

–––––– Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season

The following excerpt doesn’t directly refer to Easter, but its inherent meaning does:

I am encouraged as I look at some of those who have listened to their “different drum”: Einstein was hopeless at school math and commented wryly on his inadequacy in human relations, Winston Churchill was an abysmal failure in his early school years… Byron had to compensate for a club foot; Demosthenes for a stutter; and Homer was blind… Socrates infuriated his countrymen.
And what about Jesus, if we need an ultimate example of failure with one’s peers?
Or an ultimate example of love?

______ Madeleine L’Engle, A Circle of Quiet

And in a lighter mode:

Pride is heavy.
It weighs.
It is a fatness of spirit,
an overindulgence in self.
This gluttony is earthbound,
cannot be lifted up.
Help me to fast,
to lose this weight.
Otherwise, O Light one,
how can I rejoice in your
Ascension?

(Photos taken by Arti at Lake Ontario shore, Sept. 2022.)

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To those who celebrate this life transforming, historical event, Happy Easter to you all!

Thoughts at Easter 2023

“Easter, which turns a terrible Friday into Good Friday. It is almost too brilliant for me to contemplate; it is like looking directly into the sun; I am burned and blinded by life.

There are times when I feel that He has withdrawn from me… but Easter is always the answer to My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me!

Easter is the most brilliant of all blessings.”

–––––– Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season

Holy Sonnet 10

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy’or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

––––––– John Donne

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

–––––––– John 12:24

“… without a few days in hell, no resurrection is possible.”

–––––––– Mary Karr, Lit

And a lighter thought, the all brilliant Madeleine L’Engle again:

———————

He is risen.

Happy Easter!

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Easter Sunday Rumination

In my end is my beginning. –– T. S. Eliot, ‘East Coker’ from The Four Quartets

In the past few months, three of our longtime friends had died, one from Covid, two from other health issues, all unexpected. What hope do three heartbroken widows have if not for that very good Friday and the magnificent Sunday shedding the hope of reunion in a glorious eternity.

The poet John Donne puts into words boldly in his 1633 sonnet.

Death, be not Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Centuries later, a Kentucky farmer has written some down-to-earth lines. Wendell Berry’s poem for Easter calls for turning the belief into action. Resurrection begins now:

A Poem on Easter

The little stream sings
in the crease of the hill.
It is the water of life. It knows
nothing of death, nothing.
And this is the morning
of Christ’s resurrection.
The tomb is empty. There is
no death. Death is our illusion,
our wish to belong only
to ourselves, which is our freedom
to kill one another.
From this sleep may we too
rise, as out of the dark grave.

…..

He is risen.

Live out that Hope.

Practice resurrection.

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Easter 2021

“April is the cruellest month…” says T. S. Elliot in The Waste Land. He has his reasons. For me, April teases us with uncertainties, so in that sense, it’s a bit cruel. Just when you think it’s spring, a snow storm cometh. And just as that snow has melted and the temperature goes way above freezing and you step out to that bright sunshine, the brutal wind blows your optimism away and drops you back to sub-zero chill.

Just like this frequent visitor to my backyard. Crept underneath the fence to hide in her favourite spot under the spruce tree, uncertain which coat to wear, winter or spring, white or brown:

Just as our world has lived through a pandemic year, now with vaccines in hand, here come the new waves of variant outbreaks, bringing more uncertainties.

I wrote this poem at Easter exactly ten years ago. At that time I was dealing with a bit of a writer’s block, some kind of brain freeze while facing the real freeze outside. The next time I re-posted the poem a few years later in 2016, I was stressed out dealing with the post-surgery care of a family member. Thanks to all who had commented then, we got out of it slowly and experienced the grace of healing.

Easter 2021 is none like others. Distressful situations have multiplied, their magnitude in epic scale. As with everyone else in this world, I’ve lived through a pandemic year, which alas, still has no end in sight with the outbreaks of variants. And personally, I’m wary even just walking in public, not only for Covid risk, but having to look out to avoid being spat at or punched in the face due to all the unprovoked violence against Asians, or women, or both. Face masks may help protect us from a physical virus, but not that stemming from the human heart. Looking out to the world political stage, looming conflicts breed like a plague.

That first Easter wasn’t a celebration but an execution. A dark day, a torturous public punishment, Crucifixion. It was there in the middle of the world––signifying the centre and reaching to all––one sacrificial death unleashed the power of divine love to save us from ourselves, a concept I’m beginning to grasp as more and more urgent and relevant now. After death came the ultimate miracle, resurrection. That same resurrecting power today can raise the deadest of soul to a brand new life.

_______

An Easter Poem

April is the month of empty dreams
Half the days gone
waiting for words and spring
still frozen ground
and on the screen
a frigid page as white as snow.

Brown could be the color of hope
After the white
for all I know
green is too much to wish for
I’m contented to see a patch
of dry and withered brown.

The sun is a perpetual sign
that there’s still hope
But it’s no herald of the seasons
for its presence comforts all year long
warming my blank and barren state
as I await for words and spring.

But Easter is an apt reminder
that The Word had come
spoken clear to half-frozen ears
His body hung on a lifeless tree
Blood and water flowed
onto parched and dusty earth

So what if no words come to me
That dreaded writer’s block
reigning the winter of sterility
numbing senses,
snatching thoughts,
seizing any sign of spring.

It’s not about a post or a blog,
Or even buds and melting snow.
The Word had come
lived and loved among us,
broken, bled, died and rose,
melting frozen hearts to greet
a new dawn and eternal Spring.

–– Arti (April, 2011)

________

That historic Event in the past overrides all uncertainties in the future. He is risen!

HAPPY EASTER!

Easter Sunday Paradox

Light rising out of total darkness makes the most stark contrast.

I took this photo at sunrise two days ago. It wasn’t that dark in the environs but my camera pointing at the light source darkens everything else.

Rising Light

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Let me find Thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty
Thy glory in my valley.

–– excerpt from The Valley of Vision

On that first Easter Sunday, the ultimate paradox came to pass, for without a willing death, there would not have been a resurrection.

He is risen!

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HAPPY EASTER!

Thanks to the Quarantine Resource List from Alison Chino, I followed the link to her Trinity Aberdeen Pastor’s message from which the above prayer is quoted.

Good Friday Separation

The One who had gone through utter isolation and known our griefs laments with us at this time.

A man of sorrows who had experienced the ultimate separation: In a crisis, his followers deserted him, even his closest denied him; above all, the physical torments on the cross couldn’t match the pain of searing separation from his Father, forsaken.

___________

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

–– Isaiah 53: 2-5

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This song has been on my mind all week. An apt meditation on this Good Friday as we’re all going through separation like never before. I chose a minimal video with just the words and the music. Take a 3 minute respite in your isolation this Good Friday.

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